Cape Fear

by John D. MacDonald

  The architect and the contractor had done superb jobs. The basic house was of brick painted white and was set well back from the road. The long drive was on the right-hand side of the house as you faced it, and went back to what had once been and was still called the barn, even though it was primarily to house the Ford wagon and Carol’s doughty and honorable and purposeful MG. The barn was of brick too, painted white. The upstairs, which had been a hayloft, was the children’s area. Marilyn, never without a whimper of alarm, could climb the wall ladder, but had to be carried down, tail furled, eyes rolling.

  As Sam turned in his driveway he found himself wishing for the first time that they had close neighbors. They could see the peak of the roof of the Turner house, and some farms on the far hill slopes, but that was all. There were many houses along the road, but widely spaced. There were enough houses so that at times it seemed as though the entire population of the central school descended on the Bowden place on weekends and holidays. But no houses very close.

  He drove into the barn. Marilyn came dancing, scampering and smiling in, pleading for the expected attention. Sam, as he patted her, made a bicycle count and saw that, of the three of them, only Bucky was home. It made him uneasy to think of Nancy and Jamie out on the roads. It was always a worry because of the traffic. But this was an extra worry. Yet he did not see how he could restrict them to the area.

  Carol came halfway across the back yard to the barn, met him and kissed him and said, “Did you hear from Charlie?”

  “Yes. And I meant to call you, but I thought it could wait.”

  “Good news?”

  “Pretty good. It’s a long story.” He stared at her. “You’re looking ominously dressed up, woman. I hope there isn’t a party I’ve forgotten about.”

  “Oh, this? This was for morale. I was worried, so I got all fancied up. I generally do anyway, remember? All the happy marriage articles tell you to get dressed up for your husband every evening.”

  “But not this much.”

  They went in through the kitchen. He made a tall drink and took it upstairs with him to sip while he showered and changed. When he was out of the shower, Carol came and sat on the edge of her bed and listened to his account of the talk with Charlie and the employment of Sievers.

  “I wish he’d done something they could arrest him for, but anyway, I’m glad about Sievers. Does he look … efficient?”

  “I wouldn’t know. He isn’t the warmest guy anybody ever met. Charlie seems to think he’s tops.”

  “Charlie would know, wouldn’t he?”

  “Charlie would know. Stop looking so strained, baby. The wheels are in motion.”

  “Isn’t it going to be terribly expensive?”

  “Not too bad,” he lied.

  “I’m going to throw that blue shirt away some day.”

  He buttoned it, grinning at her, and said, “When this goes, I go.”

  “It’s frightful!”

  “I know. Where are the kids?”

  “Bucky is in his room. He and Andy are designing an airplane, they say. Jamie is at the Turners’, and he is invited to stay for dinner. Nancy ought to be back from the village any minute.”

  “Is she with anybody?”

  “She and Sandra went in on their bikes.”

  He went over to the bureau and took another swallow of his drink and set the glass down. He looked at Carol. She smiled. “I guess we can’t help it, darling. The early settlers had it all the time. Indians and animals. That’s what it’s like. Like an animal hiding back there in the woods near the creek.”

  He kissed her forehead. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “It better be. I was hungry this noon, but all of a sudden I couldn’t swallow. And I wanted to go down to the school and look at each one of them. But I didn’t. I dug weeds in an absolute frenzy until the bus let them off in front of the house.”

  He could see the drive from the bedroom window and he saw Nancy cycling toward the barn, turning to wave and yell something back over her shoulder at someone out of sight. Sandra, probably. She wore blue-jean shorts and a red blouse.

  “There’s ole Nance,” he said, “right on the dot.”

  “She is, to use her own words, in a wild rage at Pike. There seems to be new talent at the school. Something with almost platinum hair. So now Pike is a thod.”

  “Thod?”

  “It was new to me too. It seems to be a combination clod and thud. The translation was given with vast impatience. Oh, Motherrr!”

  “I’ll accept that. Pike Foster is a thod. Beyond any question. He’s a phase I’ll be glad to see ended. He’s too meaty and muscular for a fifteen-year-old boy. And when I try to make conversation with him he blushes and stares at me and gives with the most horribly vacant laugh I’ve ever heard.”

  “He doesn’t know how to take you. That’s all.”

  “There’s nothing opaque about me. Two-syllable words dazzle him. A true child of the television age. And of that damn school, and the damn teaching theories. And before you give me the usual smug answer, I will not join the PTA and try to do something about it.”

  They went downstairs. Nancy was sitting on a counter in the kitchen, talking on the phone. She gave them a look of helpless boredom, covered the mouthpiece and hissed, “I simply must study tonight.”

  “Then hang up,” Sam said.

  There was a sound like that of a rather underfed horse tumbling down the rear stairs. Bucky and his best friend, Andy, churned across the kitchen and out the screen door and down the steps, heading for the barn. The cylinder on the screen door sighed.

  “Hello, Dad,” Sam said. “Hello, Son. Hello, Andy. Hi, Mr. Bowden. What are you boys up to? Why, we’re on our way to the barn, Dad. Fine. Run along, boys.”

  Nancy, listening raptly to the voice on the other end of the line, had kicked her right sandal off. With her bare toes she was absently trying to work the latch on the cupboard under the counter. Carol had opened the wall oven and she was looking in at whatever was in there, her expression dubious and unfriendly. Carol was a good but emotional cook. She talked to the ingredients and the utensils. When something did not work out, it was not her fault. It was an act of deliberate rebellion. The darn beets decided to boil dry. The stupid chicken wouldn’t relax.

  Sam freshened his tall drink and took it over to the trestle table. He spread out the evening paper, but before he started to read he took a look around the kitchen. Carol had had a strong hand in the design. There was a lot of stainless steel. It was a big room. It took in the original kitchen, pantry and storeroom. A center island, with sink and burners, divided the work area from the eating area. The cupboards and cabinets were of dark pine. A big window looked out at the wooded hill behind the barn. Graduated copper pots hung against a pine wall. There was a small fieldstone fireplace near the trestle table. Sam had not been impressed at first. He had not felt comfortable in the room. Too magaziney, he had said. Too coppery quaint. But now he liked it very much, and it was the most used room in the house. The rather severe dining room, with its white woodwork and walls of Williamsburg blue, soon became reserved for state occasions. The trestle table seated five comfortably.

  When Nancy hung up and retrieved her sandal, Sam said, “Hear you have some competition, Nance.”

  “What? Oh, that! Mother told you. She’s an utterly rancid little thing. All frilly and with the cutetht little lithp and dreat big boo eyes. We all suspect she’s trying out for Alice in Wonderland. The boys were positively clotted around her. A monstrous sight. Nauseous. And poor old Pike. He has absolutely no conversation, so all he could do was circle around her, bunching all his muscles. I’m in no sweat.”

  “Now there is an enchantingly feminine expression.”

  “Everybody says that,” she said pityingly. “I’ve simply got to study. Really.”

  “What comes up tomorrow, dear?” Carol asked.

  “History exam.”

  “Will you want any help?” Sam asked.
/>   “Maybe on dates, later. I despise learning all those flabby old dates.”

  He looked at the doorway through which she had gone. Such a precious and precarious age. Half child and half woman. And when she was all woman, she was going to be extraordinarily lovely. And that would create its own special set of problems.

  Just as he was finishing the paper, having saved Pogo for last, he heard Carol dialing. “Hello, Liz? Carol. Is our middle child being reasonably civilized? … They are? Good. Your Mike is a perfect angel when he’s here. I guess they all tend to react that way … Could I, please? Thanks, Liz … Jamie? Dear, I don’t want you and Mike to goof off on the studying. You hear?… All right, dear. No elbows on the table, no audible chomping, and home by nine-thirty. Goodbye, honey.”

  She hung up and turned and gave Sam a guilty glance. “I know it’s stupid. But I started worrying. And it’s so easy to phone.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “If I keep this up we’re all going to turn neurotic.”

  “I think it’s a good idea to keep a closer check on them.”

  “Would you please call Bucky and send Andy home, dear?”

  At nine o’clock, after seeing that Bucky was bedded down, Sam went down the hallway to his daughter’s room. There was a fresh stack of records on her changer and the music was turned low. Nancy was at her desk, book and notebook open. She wore her pink terry-cloth robe. Her hair was rumpled. She gave him a look which implied that she was utterly exhausted.

  “Ready for dates?”

  “I guess so. I’ll probably miss half of them. Here’s the list, Daddy.”

  “Do you even write numerals backhand?”

  “It’s distinctive.”

  “It sure is. Don’t they teach handwriting anymore?”

  “It has to be legible. That’s what they say.”

  He went over to the bed and moved the indispensable kangaroo and sat down. She had got Sally for her first birthday, and it had shared her bed wherever she was ever since. She no longer chewed the ears. There was very little left to chew.

  “Do we do this to the background music of the gentleman with all the adenoids?”

  Nancy leaned far over and turned off the player switch. “I’m ready. Wheel and deal.”

  He went through the list and she missed five. After twenty minutes she had them all, no matter how he mixed up the order. She was a bright child and highly competitive. In her own special way her mind was keenly logical, orderly, not creative. Bucky seemed to be more like Nancy. Jamie was the dreamer, the slow student, the imaginative one.

  He stood up and gave her the list, hesitated, and sat down again. “Parental department,” he said.

  “I think I have a very clean conscience. At the moment, that is.”

  “This is instruction, honey. Strange-men department.”

  “Gosh, we’ve been over that a zillion times. Mom too. Don’t accept rides. Don’t go off in the woods alone. Don’t hitchhike ever. And if anybody acts funny, run like the wind.”

  “This is a little bit different, Nance. This is one specific man. I’d half decided not to tell you, but I think that would be a little stupid. This is a man who hates me.”

  “Hates you, Daddy!”

  He felt slightly annoyed. “It is possible for somebody to hate your mild, lovable, shabby old father.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Why does he?”

  “I was a witness against him a long time ago. During the war. Without my help, he wouldn’t have been convicted. He’s been in a military prison ever since. Now they’ve let him out. And he’s in this area. Your mother and I believe he came out here one day a couple of weeks ago. He may do nothing at all. But we have to assume he might.”

  “Why did they put him in jail?”

  He looked at her for a moment, gauging her fund of knowledge.

  “Rape. She was a girl your age.”

  “Golly!”

  “He’s not as tall as I am. He’s about the size of John Turner, and just as big around as John, but not as soft. He’s bald and quite tan, with very white, cheap-looking false teeth. He dresses poorly and smokes cigars. Can you remember that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t let any man answering that description get anywhere near you for any reason.”

  “I won’t. Golly, this is pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “Can I tell the kids?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t see why not. I’m going to tell your brothers. The man’s name is Cady. Max Cady.”

  He stood up again. “Don’t study too long, chicken. You’ll hit the exam better if you get plenty of sleep.”

  “I can’t wait to tell all the kids. Wow!”

  He grinned at her and tousled her hair. “Big deal, hey. Drama enters the life of Nancy Ann Bowden, subdeb. Danger stalks this scrawny lass. Tune in tomorrow for another chapter in the life of this American girl who smiles bravely while—”

  “Stop it, now!”

  “Want your door closed?”

  “Hey, I nearly forgot. I saw Jake in the village. He says he’s got room to pull the boat out now, and you know how he is, so I told him to go right ahead and we can work on her this weekend. Is that all right?”

  “That’s fine, chicken.”

  When he went downstairs Jamie was back home. Carol was in the process of shooing him off to bed. Sam told him to wait a moment.

  “I just told Nance about Cady,” he said.

  Carol frowned and said, “But do you think … Yes, I see. I think that’s wise, Sam.”

  “What’s happening?” Jamie demanded.

  “Listen very carefully, son. I’m going to tell you something and I want you to remember everything I say.”

  He explained the situation to Jamie. Jamie listened intently. Sam concluded by saying, “We’ll tell this to Bucky too, but I’m not sure how much difference it will make to him. He lives in his own Martian world. So I want you to stick closer than usual to your little brother. I realize that may cramp some of your fun, but this is for real, Jamie. This isn’t a television show. You’ll do that?”

  “Sure. Why don’t they arrest him?”

  “He hasn’t done anything.”

  “I’ll bet they could arrest him. The cops have guns, see, that they’ve taken off dead murderers. Then they go up to the man and they shove a murder gun in his pocket and then they arrest him for carrying a gun without a license and put him in jail, see. And then they put the gun in the laboratory and they look at it through a thing and they find out it was a murder gun and so then they electrocute him, real early in the morning sometime.”

  “Brother!” Carol said.

  “James, my boy, the reason this is a very fine country is because that kind of thing can’t happen. We don’t jail innocent men. We don’t jail people because we think they might do something. If that could happen, you, Jamie Bowden, might find yourself in jail sometime because somebody lied about you.”

  Jamie thought it over scowlingly and then nodded. “That Scooter Prescott would have me locked up in a minute.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can do twenty-eight push-ups now, see, and when I can do fifty I’m going up to him and I’m going to punch his fat nose.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “Sure. I told him.”

  “You better go to bed now, dear,” Carol said.

  At the foot of the front stairs Jamie turned and said, “But there’s one trouble. Scooter is doing push-ups too, darn it.”

  After he was gone Carol said, “How did Nancy take it?”

  “Intelligently.”

  “I think it’s wise to tell them.”

  “I know. But it makes me feel a little ineffectual. I’m the king of this little tribe. I should be able to go put the fear of God in Cady. But I don’t see how I could. Not with this office-type physique. He looks like he’s got muscles they haven’t named yet.”

  “
Is that Marilyn?”

  He went out into the kitchen and let her in. She waggled and beamed at him and flounced over to her dish, stared with shock and disbelief at its emptiness, then turned and looked up at him.

  “No dice, girl. You’re on a diet, remember?”

  She slooped disconsolately at her water dish, trudged over to her corner, turned around three times and sighed as she collapsed onto her side. Sam sat on his heels beside her and prodded her stomach gently with his finger.

  “Got to get your girlish figure back, Marilyn. Got to get rid of that flob.”

  She rolled an eye at him and the long red brush of tail flapped twice. She yawned, with a little yowl at the end of the yawn, exposing the long white ivory fangs.

  He stood up. “A great savage beast. Dismayed by kittens. Bedeviled by vicious squirrels. Every day is a hard day, Marilyn, for a four-year-old devout coward, isn’t it?”

  The tail flapped dreamily and she closed her eyes. He wandered back into the living room, yawned. Carol looked at him and yawned.

  “I caught it from Marilyn; you caught it from me.”

  “So I’m taking it to bed.”

  “Make sure Nance has hit the sack,” he said. “I’ll be right along.”

  He turned off the lights, started to lock the front door and then opened it again and went out into the front yard, strolled down toward the road. Rain had washed the air clean, and it had the smell of June and the promise of summer. The stars looked small and high and newly polished. He heard the dwindling snarl of a truck on Route 18 and, after it died, the remote song of a dog on a far-off farm across the valley. A mosquito whined in his ear and he waved it away.

  The night was dark and the sky was high, and the world was a very large place. And a man was almost excessively small, puny and vulnerable. His brood was abed.

  Cady lived somewhere in this night, breathing the darkness.

  He slapped at the mosquito and walked back across the damp grass to the house, locked up, and went up to bed.

  Three

  SIEVERS REPORTED TO SAM in his office at ten on Thursday morning. He sat in his very still way and did not change expression as he spoke in his flat, bored voice.